Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/211

 now for critic or commentator a Gifford only in place of a Keate. The remarks on this entry added by Christian pilgrims who came after are, in the phrase of the archetypal Pecksniff, "very soothing." One of these, I think, observes, with a pleasant pungency of originality, that the fool hath said in his heart—we have seen what.

Most of the emendations or solutions offered by Mr. Rossetti of corrupt or obscure passages in the "Revolt of Islam" seem to me probable and sound; but in this verse—

Gestures and looks, such as in whirlwinds bore, Which might not be withstood"—

I take the verb to be used in the absolute not the active sense—"bore onward or forward;" this use of the word here is a somewhat ungraceful sign of haste, but makes clear a passage otherwise impracticably dense and chaotic. Before passing from this poem, I have to express a hope that a final edition of Shelley's works will some day, rather sooner than later, restore to it the proper title and the genuine text. Every change made in it was forced upon the author by pressure from without; and every change is for the worse. Has no reader ever asked himself what can be the meaning of the second title? What is the revolt of Islam? Islam is not put forward as the sole creed of